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iucation, Its Advantages and 
The Necessity of Co-operation 

By and Between 

Parent, Pupil and Teacher 




An Address by Charles Eugene Clark 

Before the Mothers' Club, Second District School, Covington 

May 14, 1919 



EDUCATION, ITS ADVANTAGES AND 
THE NECESSITY OF CO-OPERATION 

BY AND BETWEEN 

PARENT, PUPIL AND TEACHER 

AN ADDRESS BY CHARLES EUGENE CLARK, 

Before the Mothers' Club, Second District School, Covington, 
May 14, 1919. 

Dear Friends : 

IN this life if we are to accomplish that which is worth 
while, we must work for the corhmon good; for the ad- 
vancement not only of the few. but for the progression 
of the many. We must teach that the earth is the Lord's, 
and the fullness thereof, and that all men are His children 
and entitled to its benefits and blessings, and that our 
children are our most precious assets ; and that though 
the State may give to them, as to us, an economic holding, 
yet. that only through co-operation, working together, can 
we make of it an eai"thly paradise. 

And so, my friends, in all progressive communities, 
including that of Covington, with the fear of God in their 
hearts and the love of mankind, we find a people endeavor- 
ing to correct abuses, and trying to increase the sum total 
of human happiness. For it is through a just co-operation 
that we lift this earth towards Heaven. 

Our entire land and people, both urban and rural, are a 
part of our common country, and the aim of its inhabitants 
should be the maximum of human improvement, enjoy- 
ment and progress. 

As empires find the reason for their being in the families 
of which they are composed, so we must learn that the 
unit of the Nation is the home, and that the welfare of 
the individual, including the children of the household, 
should be the chief consideration of the State ; and that 
our lives, homes and families should reflect the ripened 



fruit of an advanced civilization. Let us never forget 
Cornelia, the Mother of the Gracchi, who found in her 
children, her chief est jewels. Are yours not as precious ? 

We shall be held strictly accountable for our oppor- 
tunity and stewardship in the matter of making for the 
welfare of our children ; and, as we are said to be a people 
of idealists, engaged in a great practical task, we have no 
greater duty than that of the nurture, welfare and educa- 
tion of the children, in order that they may be prepared 
for the duties of life. 

Much is expected of us ; aye, rich harvests shall be 
required at our hands, and we must pay in much fine gold ; 
and we are paying it, as witness the wonderful system of 
our Common Schools, with their splendid corps of teachers, 
our commodious and beautiful schools, homes and the 
great interest manifested by our people and officials, in- 
cluding our Board of Education, in matters educational. 

As a social order should provide for an economic 
development, a political stability, and a desirable social 
life ; so the object of all religion, art, literature and econ- 
omics, is the creation of better human beings, whose aim 
shall be the uplift of their fellowmen. Wherein can we 
better start, than with our children, as we educate them to 
become men and women of character and of honor? And 
especially so, as the Child is the Father of the Man, and in 
the world's tomorrow supplants him in the world's affairs. 

Those of us favored in head, heart and hand, as well 
as fortune, should be as the light upon the candle to guide 
the footsteps of their fellows, as they wade through the 
Sloughs of Despond towards the heights of the Delectable 
Mountains. 

And so should we elder children, including both parent 
and teacher, lead the younger generation in the paths of 
duty and progress, so that they shall, in due time, traverse 
the highways of advanced progression, and in their turn, 
maintain those ideals, which make for all that which is 
best in the life of the individual, the community and the 
State. 

Author 
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My friends, both as parents and teachers, there is a 
life of service which we may render at home and in the 
schools, as well as on the hustings. One in which we 
may fight and serve as valiantly as though we faced "shotted 
cannon." A service, and a duty may be rendered in the 
home and in the schoolroom, which shall make for the 
advancement and uplift of our children, and add to, and 
make for, their joy and wonder of living. 

To that end, let us inspire and encourage those enlight- 
ened conditions in school affairs, which shall make for a 
proper curriculum, sanitary, beautiful, and well-arranged 
school-houses, with all the necessary paraphernalia con- 
ducive to study and learning. 

Let us insist upon good sanitation, in that we find a 
sovmd mind in a sound body, and that in order that chil- 
dren may thrive and be happy, they must be clean and 
manly. Our co-operation in these matters are indeed 
essential and timely. 

Let us teach our children, both at home and in the 
school-room, to be patient, kind, humble, courageous, gen- 
erous, courteous, and unselfish, as well as good natured, 
guileless and sincere. For these virtues are said to be of 
the "Spectrum of love," and make for the stature of the 
perfect boy and girl, man and woman. 

Let us teach them, by both precept and example, that 
this world is not a playground, but a schoolroom ; that life 
is not a holiday, but an education toward better things, 
and that the ideal of what one may be, becomes to him or 
her, the hope and pattern of what he can, and will be. 

As good seed sown upon good ground brings forth an 
abundant harvest, so the seed of beautiful lives, however 
humble, may flower and fructify right here in the old 
Second District School, and in our homes, to great human 
helpfulness and happiness, indeed, into a semi-Divine Civ- 
ilization that shall lift men and women above sordid things 
— even to the heights of the mountains, and place them 
into a Garden of Eden, and so we may have in a Paradise 
Regained, one which was lost. 

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After all is said and done, we too are children, ever 
learning the lessons of life, as we, also, are confronted by 
its problems and duties. And so it is in all humbleness, 
that we should pursue the scheme of things, and endeavor 
to solve life's problems, including that of our children, 
which lead to and make for life's end. For is it not 
written, "that it is only as a little child that we can enter 
the Kingdom of Heaven"? Friends, we must be ever un- 
selfish and ever helpful, in order that we may enter the 
Temple of Life through the Gate Beautiful, which is that 
of Duty and Service, and realize that Service is Love 
personified. 

"I slept and dreamed that life was Beauty, 
I woke and found that Hfe was Duty." 

"The path of Duty is the way to Glory, 

And he who treads it, thirsting only for the right, 

And learns to deaden all thoughts of self, 

Before his journey closes, he shall find 

The stubborn thistles bursting into glossy purples 

That out-redden all voluptuous garden roses." 

My friends, education is said to be the Ark of Safety, 
and that outside of it is the Deluge of Ignorance, Super- 
stition and Destruction, and that it begins with life; as 
early in Hfe are laid the foundations of character; and 
that we have in education a companion which no fortune 
can depress, no crime destroy, and no thief break in and 
steal. And as we empty our purse into our head and that 
of our children, so we have a paying investment in Knowl- 
edge, one out of which shall come much fine gold, even 
contentment and honor. 

The educated man or woman, boy or girl, is a depend- 
able friend, a credit at home, and an honor abroad ; for 
education and culture are ever an honorable introduction. 

True education "disciplines the feelings, restrains the 
passions, inspires true and worthy motives, and instills 
morality and religion. It awakens a love for truth, gives a 
just sense of duty, and opens the eyes of the soul to the 
purpose and end of life." 

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Education is said to be the Palladium of our liberties, 
more effectual than a standing army, and the schoolhouse 
and the school master, the first line of our defense ; and 
so as we retrench the wages of the school master and 
belittJe his calling, we must raise those of the recruiting 
sergeant. The more schools, the less jails ; and the less 
you have of the former, the greater need of the latter. 

Sidney Smith has well said, that the true object of 
education is to give children resources that will endure as 
long as life lasts, habits that time may ameliorate but not 
destroy, occupations that will render sickness tolerable, 
solitude pleasant, age venerable, life more dignified and 
useful, and death less terrible. 

In its widest sense, it is said to include everything that 
exerts a formative influence, commencing with the cradle 
and ending with the grave. 

We must realize that education is not mere learning, 
but also exercise and development of the human heart, 
mind and soul. It aims not at the "mere stuffing of the 
child's mind, as a warehouse with goods, but rather re- 
gards it as a living fountain, which properly cherished 
and regulated, will elevate life and nourish the generations 
of men." 

In the pursuit of the education of our children, as well 
as ourselves, we should aim and strive "to attain that which 
is necessary, then, that which is useful, and, finally, that 
which is ornamental." 

"Marble monuments may perish, plates of brass be 
defaced by the tooth of time, temples crumble into dust, 
and even proud cities become nameless and forgotten 
mounds" ; but the illumined minds of your children, and 
their illustrious deeds, will endure forever. 

In these United States we have more than 30,000,000 
of school children, with above a half a million school teach- 
ers, and some 300,000 schools, with a property valuation 
in excess of $800,000,000, and with an income mainly de- 
rived through taxation of over a quarter of a billion of 
dollars, costing us some $8.50 per capita of population. 

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And yet we are but paying our school teachers through- 
out the nation a niggardly compensation, the salaries paid 
the males averaging about $600 per annum, and that to the 
females of some $480. How beggarly these sums for 
such princely services rendered ! This is indeed a case 
where the laborer is well worthy of a better hire, and is. 
entitled to a most substantial increase. 

See to it, that a better recompense, one more com- 
mensurate with the high service rendered, is paid to these 
noble men and women who devote their lives to the train- 
ing of our children in the schools, and who have and are 
contributing so largely to our general wellfare. In this 
you may co-operate for the advancement of your children. 
By generously co-operating with our progressive Board of 
Education and school officials we may strengthen their 
hands, stimulate more largely their interest in school affairs, 
and advance the cause of education throughout our city. 
Interest in and appreciation of their effort is the wine of 
life. See to it that they get it. 

As environment moulds largely the character and con- 
diJct of the child, so must we surround the children with 
ennobling influences in both home and school. Domestic 
conditions should be of the best possible, and the growing 
child should be surrounded with a wealth of books, the 
charm of music, and the fragrance of flowers, while the 
less fortunate ones who come from homes of straitened 
circumstances, should find in the school room and the school 
atmosphere, proper standards of beauty and life, which 
shall dissipate the misery and grayness which becloud them, 
and open to them the door of Hope, as it shall bring to 
them the Music of a New Day with the promise of a 
better life. 

Yes, indeed, the education of our youth calls for the 
undivided co-operation of parent, pupil and teacher, and 
the most generous support of the Municipality and the 
State. We get in this life as we give and can take out no 
more than we put into it. 

In these schools of ours we must teach our children 



that contentment consists not of great wealth, but rather 
of few wants, and that life's greatest reward is that peace 
which supasseth all understanding, which cannot be gotten 
for gold, and neither shall silver be weighed for the price 
thereof. 

My friends, as parents, next afj:er that liberty which 
you enjoy, together with necessary food, raiment and 
shelter, and the worship of God, according to the dictates 
of your conscience, there is no privilege more precious than 
that of the free and untrammeled education of your chil- 
dren. See to it that they get the best. 

As you surround them with a wealth of books, works of 
character and standing, in which they may read "everything 
of something, and something of everything," they may 
remain at home, within its four walls, and yet traverse 
the world, climb its highest mountains, and front the very 
universe of stars. 

Education is the very Sesame of Knowledge, and he 
who delves into and masters Rhetoric, Logic, Philosophy, 
Science, Law and Art, as well as Letters, holds the Golden 
Key that opens to him the Republic of Learning, the true 
Cosmopolis. 

The child must co-operate in his education. He must 
be diligent, shunning idleness, said to be the greatest 
prodigality in the world, and which will lead to, and make 
for, his undoing. 

You must teach, and the pupil must learn, veneration, 
for that Omnipotent Power which gives "loveliness to the 
lily, color to the violet, fragrance and beauty to the rose." 

You must bid the child to observe the handiwork of God, 

"In that Cathedral, boundless as our wonder, 

Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon, supply, 
Its choir, the wind and waves, its organ, thunder. 
Its dome, the sky." 

They should observe how, 

"The dust we tread beneath our feet. 

Shall change beneath the summer showers 

To golden grain and mellowed fruit 
And rainbow-tinted flowers." 

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In the laboratory, our children should observe how the 
elements chemically separate or combine, and as they ar- 
range their crystals, "so we have the glorious opal, the 
beautiful sapphire, and the scintillating diamond" ; and, 
further, while the uninitiated but see in the wayside pool, 
the muddy bottom, with its ooze and creeping and crawling 
things ; so may he, whose sense and soul has been attuned 
to finer things, see in the selfsame pool the reflection of 
the multi-colored dome of Heaven. 

My friends, may we not believe with Epictetus, that, 
"It is nobler to raise the souls of the children, than the 
roofs of our dwellings." Education truly is worth all it 
costs, and to its devotees and ministers, all honor ! 

Let us encourage the children to revel in our parks and 
playgrouunds wherein, on holidays, they may "go gypsying 
with the wind," and behold the "flowers with a thousand 
faces, as they gather the kisses of the morning." 

Let us teach them, in God's out-of-doors, the secrets of 
the dews and damps, and let them behold how Nature has, 
during the long quiet hours of the summer night, "lit her 
lamps upon each grass blade for the pageantry of the 
morning." 

May the children, "See in the feather fallen from the 
bluebird in its flight, the tinting of the Hand that touches 
the tented sky with azure, and in the redbird's glowing wing, 
the fingerprints of Him who weaves a ribbon of the falling 
rain and binds therewith the troubled brow of Storm." 

As our children clamber over the fallen tree trunks, 
of Devon Park and up its flowery banks, let them behold in 
its moss, "a piece of Nature's velvet, fresh from the very 
loom wherein was woven the glory of the morning," and 
see in its glorious trees as they tower heavenward, the 
fingers of God. 

Let both parents and teacher impress upon the children 
that courtesy, reverence, and kindness, make for nobility 
of character and understanding, and that in their inter- 
course and daily life, both at home and abroad, that all of 



chivalry will be found in gentleness and manliness, and all 
of courtesy in kindness. 

Let us impress upon their tender minds and hearts, as 
they behold the helpless creatures, over which we have 
dominion and which claim our protection — 

"That he prayeth best, who loveth best, 

All things, both great and small. 
For the dear God who made and loveth us, 

Made and loveth all." 

As we stimulate and appeal to its finer, better nature, so 
we awaken in the child, the voice and soul of the sainted 
Thomas a Kempis, that, "If our hearts are right, then will 
every creature be to us a mirror of life, and a book of 
holy doctrine." 

Let us all realise, that to get a proper estimate of life, 
we must look past the gilded frame of the picture, to the 
beauty of the painting," and "that we measure the pro- 
gress attained by a people, not merely by the accumula- 
tion of the means of living, but by the value and character 
of the hfe lived as well"; and that the glory of our Nation 
consists not only in the extent of its power and dominion, 
but also in the moral and intellectual pre-eminence of its 
people. Thus we shall get a true perspective of life's ideals 
and motives. 

Both as children, and as grown-ups, we are too prone 
to regard "Cornucopia, the golden, as the exalted horn 
among the nations, and see the glittering millions lavished 
from its broader end, which flares and blossoms like the 
tulip, but strange to say, we do not oftener see the dimin- 
ished man coming out of the lesser and other end of the 
selfsame horn." Such men may stand upon a three penny 
bit and be housed in a thimble. God pity them. 

Friends, "though wealth may make a ladder and rig it 
out with rounds, coinmanding loftier planes and broader 
views, yet there must be a foot bold enough to climb them, 
and a brain balanced enough to regard the grander horizons 
and growing lights, undizzied, and undazzled, and a heart 
TRUE ENOUGH to be touched and kindled by it all, into the 

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living belief, that these words are worthy of all acceptation: 
Faith, Hope and Charity, and the greatest of these is 
Charity." 

In closing, I would adjure you to instill into the minds 
and hearts of our children, the beautiful sentiments of 
Dr. Parker when he bids us, "To do our duty in shop 
and kitchen, in the market place, the office, the school, and 
the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front 
rank of some great battle and knew that victory for man- 
kind depended upon our bravery, strength and skill. When 
we do that, the humblest of us will be serving in that 
great army which achieves and makes for the welfare of 
the world. We will have attained an education which 
makes for the brotherhood of men and the Fatherhood of 
God. 

Mothers, may 1 recall to you the tender sentiment of a 
lover of mankind, of the home and its mistress, one who pro- 
foundly understood the human heart. "You may think what 
you will of it now, but the song and story heard around the 
kitchen fire, have colored the lives and thoughts of most of 
us, have given us the gems of whatever poetry blesses our 
hearts, whatever memories linger in our yesterdays. 

Attribute to the school and school master what we may, 
the rays that make up the little day called life, radiate from 
the God-swept circle of the heartstone." 

And so, my friends, whatever message, word of truth or 
beauty I may have brought to you this afternoon, I owe 
largely to those "beloved ones," who have long since sat 
down by the waters of crystal in the Kingdom of Life. 

May the remembrance of all our beloved be to us as 
a benediction, and may we, in the fullness of time, again 
rejoin them as we, too, having finished our pilgrimage, shall 
pass on from earth to heaven. 



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